This was supposed to be one post. Then I realized that it was giant. I think this says something good about the expansion right there, that rather than writing a short "I liked/didn't like the expansion", I instead wanted to explain. I'm actually a bit excited to talk about this game and not in my usual rant about how Civ IV is so much better. At this point, I think there could even be an actual debate there rather than it being an obvious statement. Anyway, first up, buildings! Spies, religion, diplomacy, navies, and whatever else I think of will follow.

I purchased the expansion recently, thanks to a Steam sale. It was
strange timing. Just that morning I'd been thinking that Civ V was
irredeemably bad. So much was screwed up and the gameplay seemed overly simplistic relative to Civ IV.
The tactical combat was nice, but the empire itself was a trivial
matter. The empire, rather than being the thing that supported the
army, was instead a weight. Only a few units were ever needed, but if I
won too much I'd fall into crippling unhappiness and lose the ability
to fight.

This has changed somewhat.

Buckets of Buildings
The
expansion adds a lot of buildings. These are linked related to the new
mechanics of religion and espionage. Shrines add faith, as do temples
now, with the new amphitheater replacing them in the culture generation
role. Two anti-spying buildings are added, though I suspect I'd need to
play on a harder difficulty for them to matter much. They slow down
the rate at which enemies can steal technology, which is only relevant
in a sort of bitter spot between totally outpacing them and therefore
not caring that they stole railroads with which to flee your giant death
robots and being behind them in tech and therefore having nothing for
them to steal.

These buildings give me something to do
beside spam more unneeded units or generate science. I feel like I'm
actually managing something. Religion can give bonuses to these
buildings, making them worth building if they didn't seem to be already,
since at first the 1 faith per turn shrine can seem pretty lame. There
are also a lot of new wonders and some existing wonders have been
tweaked a bit. Some remain generally powerful, just as Chichen Itza
(50% longer golden age, though it lost the +4 happiness) while the Hagia
Sophia only generates a prophet instead a great person of your choice
(aka, an engineer). Someone apparently noticed that the Hanging Gardens
are a sort of garden, so now they give a free garden.